Wartime on the Land
Hitler's Whistle. By A. G. Street. (Eyre and Spottiswoode. 12s. 6d.) • The Idle Countryman. By "B.B. ' (Eyre and Spottiswoode. los. 6d.)
THIS is Mr. Street's diary of three years of war farming (Hitler's whistle being a local name for the siren) together with his reflections
on general agricultural topics. It is addressed primarily to towns-
men, and should be refeshing and salutary to those accustomed to regard the English country as a ganie preserve or, alternatively,
a National Park for enlarging the sensibility. Mr. Street enjoys
hunting, shooting and fishing, and no one could be more conscious of the beauty of, the country ; but his primary contention throughout is that agriculture is an industry like any other that can and should provide a.decent living for its entrepreneurs and workers, as well as goods, and types of human character vitally important to the nation. He never quite faces the question of tariffs in peacetime, but in the main his contention holds for peace and war, and it is stated with spirit and an enjoyable degree of dogmatism. No one should be put off reading him by inability during the first 30 pages to understand some of the technical terms used ; their meaning becomes plain as they recur, and a real picture emerges of the life of a farmer working an average South of England farm (Mr. Street farms 30o acres in Wiltshire), the more clearly perhaps because the author himself has, as he puts it, lived a double life, half rural and half urban.
Mr. Street's experience of both types of living is one reason why country as well as town people should read his book, and there are others. A non-farmer is not competent to judge his detailed discussion of the proper proportion of stock (and which type of stock) to arable farming ; but on this, as on the vital questions of the labourer's wage and farm prices, he can hardly fail to stimulate thought. Other less controversial subjects—the optimum size of farm and degree of mechanisation and rural housing--are discussed sensibly and pragmatically ; and proper credit is given to the War Agricultural Committees. Useful and interesting as the technical matter is, however, what is most valuable is Mr. Street's warmth, honesty and belligerent goodwill applied to a subject that even now is regarded by three-quarters of the population with a damning mixture of indifference and sentimentality.
The Idle Countryman is unfortunately likely to foster both-these attitudes. The author's admission that he is neither Jefferies nor Hudson is not quite sufficient to disarm criticism or- to make palatable the mixture of inflated pronouncements on " Life " and over- long descriptions of missing shots at wood pigeons flavoured, as they both are, with a certain disagreeable archness. ;probably, however, is pleasurehowever, accurate enough to give some pleare to a. homesick soldier, but Hudson and Jefferies, or Hardy and Borrow (if they were in print) would give incomparably more.
CAROL STEWART.
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